Main menu

Tag Archives: Auction

By Sherry Truhlar, President, Red Apple Auctions

Last February (2012), two friends of mine headed to Old Town, Alexandria, VA to participate in The Art League’s Patrons’ Show. For a $175 ticket, they each came home with an original work of art. It was a sold-out night with almost 700 people attending.

I haven’t yet attended this event myself, but it’s gotten some good P.R. My friends had read about it in Washingtonian Magazine’s “Best Of” issue where it had been featured as the “Most Fun Art Fundraiser.”

I share this concept (as told to me through their experience) as the idea might resonate with you.

This annual event features hundreds of original pieces donated by Art League and Torpedo Factory Art Center artists. The number of tickets sold matches the number of works donated, so everyone goes home with a piece of art. Some of the selections are worth $175 … others are valued at thousands more.

For reasons which will soon become obvious, guests are encouraged to view the works online and in person in the two weeks prior to the event. They are advised to jot down the numbers of the pieces they find most appealing. (The reason being is that they won’t have much time to decide at the event!)

On event night, ticket-holders crowd into the art space, taking up all three floors. Seating is limited. The announcer stands on the ground floor in the atrium area so he can be more easily heard and seen by those in the second and third levels. Some guests lean over the railing to see and hear.

Tickets are randomly drawn as the event gets underway. When the name of each ticket-holder is announced, he has a few seconds to shout out the number of the piece he wishes to claim.

If you’re lucky enough to be one of the first ticket holders drawn (my friends were in the 200s and 400s, respectively) it can be a short night for you. Otherwise, the process takes several hours. You’ll need to listen to each number called so that you can cross it from your list, should the chosen piece be on your list of favorites, too.

Though other prizes are randomly awarded throughout the night (e.g. tickets to shows, gift cards to restaurants and hotels), the focus is on the art.

Does it sound like the right fit for your growing art consortium? My friends had fun and it’s a neat way to acquire an original piece of art. It might just work for you.

by Sherry Truhlar, President, Red Apple Auctions

You and your colleagues in the art collective want to raise a little money. Maybe you want to have some cash available to help each other with scholarships to attend art classes. Maybe you want to upgrade the A/C in your studios.

While you sit around debating how best to raise the money, someone mentions the idea of a benefit auction. Chances are, you and your friends have been asked to donate to those types of fundraisers before, so it’s only natural that you’d be familiar with them.

“Everyone can donate a piece of their art,” someone suggests, “We’ll sell tickets to the night, and we’ll auction the donations.” In principle, it sounds like a good idea. After all, you’re an art league and you like art.

But here’s the hard fact: In many cases, you’ll raise more money if you don’t sell art.

Benefit auctions raise the most money when the items they offer have mass appeal. You don’t want to sell just anything. You want to sell items that many people want to own.

Auctions are based on the concept of scarcity. It’s that old principle of high demand and low supply. When a benefit auction offers limited, desirable merchandise to many interested buyers, they raise a lot of money.

But sadly, some auction planners begin to think that “more is better.” They fill their auction tables with anything, thereby creating a garage sale mentality among guests. Stuff sells cheap.

As an artist, here’s the challenge with making the benefit auction all about art: Your work (in most cases) doesn’t offer mass appeal that guests are willing to overpay to get.

What sorts of things are in “high demand” in a benefit auction? What types of things offer mass appeal?

A 5-course meal for six prepared in your home … it could be used for an anniversary dinner, birthday celebration, or a promotion party.

A long weekend in a private home on the lake …it can be used for a family retreat, a romantic getaway, or a quiet sanctuary.

Two seats to the always sold-out pro-football game … it can be used as a thank-you gift to a star sales representative in my company, a birthday present for my husband, a surprise treat for my son-in-law

Unusual, “once in a lifetime” activities (such as serving as Grand Marshal in a parade or taking a helicopter ride over your house) … it can be used as a memorable anniversary gift, a story for my next blog, a check off the bucket list

These are the types of things that many people enjoy doing or would like to do. Each item is attractive to multiple people for multiple reasons.

So what should the art collective do? How can you raise the funds for that new A/C unit?

Go ahead, plan a benefit auction. And do what others do — seek donations like those listed above for your live auction. To raise big money, stick with “known quantities.”

And when it comes to including your art in the event, sell it in a different way. For instance, set up a bucket raffle whereby guests can buy multiple tickets and drop their ticket/s into the bucket of the art piece they like most. Should they be the lucky winner drawn from the bucket, they would be able to take home the art for the price of their raffle tickets.

Remember: Offering items with mass appeal will raise you more money for less work. Unless your artwork has mass appeal – and most art doesn’t – it won’t generate the returns you were hoping to achieve.

To learn more about benefit auctions and charity auctioneer Sherry Truhlar, visit www.RedAppleAuctions.com. The site includes her forward-thinking blog, free teleclasses, and a complementary download of her annual Auction Item Guide™– that reveals the top 100 items sold in gala auctions last year.